All things Automobile - THE definitive car thread

Here's the deal. When I left my career as an Auto Tech I really hated cars. The following decade in the motorcycle biz mostly cured that, and I find myself really enjoying the car discussions that occur within Shiny Things. But, I don't really want to instigate the derailment of other people's threads, which easily happens in those discussions.

So I figured I'd start a thread where there are no automotive boundaries. Got a Tech question? Ask, and I'll try to provide an intelligible answer Want to talk about the latest pickup? Go for it. If jdiaz is looking for a place to scream about a piece of shit VW, or lament Tauruses gone by, this is the place. Bench racing? Yep, we'll do that too. Compliment, insult, whatever you want. You can even insult wives (cars) here.

If the concept takes off we'll have some fun. If it dies on the vine, so be it.

I'll start:

My recent foray into Ford territory:

Enough to remind me once again that I'm glad I no longer do it for a living.

Now, my question - she short-shifts something fierce. Like, never getting it above 2500 RPM fierce. Is that bad for it? It sure is bad for me - every time she does it I just cringe, knowing that she's not getting ANY power out of it...

Probably wont hurt it, but if she's also light on the gas pedal and broke it in from new that way it may take a while for the rings to seat

You should take it for a drive once in a while. Make sure you leave her at home. Or better yet, enroll her in a performance driving course for novices. She'll learn how to use the car and gain valuable driving skills at the same time!

I drive it as often as I can, and yes, I've been looking for a course here. I think they do car track days at the track where I take the Daytona in Topeka. She thinks I drive like Ricky Racer because I actually rev it up when I drive it. I try to avoid driving with her in the car...

Probably wont hurt it, but if she's also light on the gas pedal and broke it in from new that way it may take a while for the rings to seat

You should take it for a drive once in a while. Make sure you leave her at home. Or better yet, enroll her in a performance driving course for novices. She'll learn how to use the car and gain valuable driving skills at the same time!

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Funny you should say this. In 1985, I bought a brand new Prelude. I drove the snot out the car, fast, on three wheels around clover leafs, you name it. Five speed. Of course.

My girlfriend at the time told me her mom had the same car. I was sure it was an automatic. For some reason, I had to drive it somewhere for her mom, and to my surprise, it was a five speed. Wow. Mom clutches! But, I think she did not get the revs up like mine, and it felt like it was down 20 hp from mine. It was really quite remarkable.

Funny you should say this. In 1985, I bought a brand new Prelude. I drove the snot out the car, fast, on three wheels around clover leafs, you name it. Five speed. Of course.

My girlfriend at the time told me her mom had the same car. I was sure it was an automatic. For some reason, I had to drive it somewhere for her mom, and to my surprise, it was a five speed. Wow. Mom clutches! But, I think she did not get the revs up like mine, and it felt like it was down 20 hp from mine. It was really quite remarkable.

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A lot of the earlier Hondas would coke the intake valves with heavy carbon deposits over time. as would many other brands of cars. The Germans even developed a cleaning process for this using a compressed air cleaner that used walnut shells as a cleaning media. This problem was more related to the additive packages in gasolines at the time, but certain valve/intake/combustion chamber designs suffered worse than others. A family friend had an accord around the same time, and it was so coked it couldn't pull to redline in any gear. Conversely my Accord of the same vintage ran great, because it lived its life at redline which helped keep the deposits from forming and restricting air flow.

Vehicular Appreciation Thread? I'm in. I've been a car geek since I was born; the motorcycle thing is a secondary obsession. I have wide ranging interests. A few of my past playthings:
'78 Ford Fiesta Mk1 (possibly my favorite car)
1972 Fiat 850 Spider (fun, but as reliable as you'd expect)
1970 Fiat 124 Spider (my first and only restoration. Actually very dependable)
1986 Audi GT (was my daily driver for 12 years)
1979 Austin Mini (just sold it a few months ago)
'65 Buick Skylark convertible (got it in a trade)
1967 Pontiac LeMans (this was a "parts car" for my buddy's GTO resto. We decided it was too nice to scrap so did a cosmetic resto on it and flipped it)
Big Red, my '65 F100 tow vehicle
'87 BMW 325i (my current plaything)
I've got an empty spot in the garage that I'm hoping to fill with a Ford Falcon eventually, but the cash I got from the Mini sale really needs to go into Big Red to fix some rust/paint issues. I've owned around 50 cars since I started driving in 1982. I used to buy cheap heaps (mostly unwanted Fiats) and fix them to sell or part them out. Can't find them anymore; scrap value is too high. As I get older the desire to do big projects has diminished and I'm now seeing the value of buying someone else's finished project for pennies on their investment.

I think I have a valve guide question! 1996 Toyota Rav4, 190K, 2.0L, 5spd, FWD -- losing a bit of oil between changes (maybe 1/2 qt over 1000 miles or so, when before it didn't lose any). Telltale puff of tailpipe smoke on startup now, so I'm thinking valve guides. But I'm not a mechanic so not sure if I'm barking up the wrong tree here. Anyway....

Questions:
1. Can the oil loss be solely attributed to valve guides, or should I assume rings are going as well? No apparent oil burning while driving, but I've never followed the car myself....
2. How "invasive" (aka expensive) is a typical valve guide job on the 4cyl? I there anything that should be done while we're in there? (Timing belt, water pump, cam seals, etc are all recent).
3. What if I don't do anything at all? Vehicle is otherwise stone-ax reliable and a worry-free runabout, as in I don't care who parks next to it. At all. Ever. Can I run it as-is for another 25K? 50K?

The other day my truck smelled like an electrical fire. Pulled over, opened hood and found nothing. Could still smell it, but saw no smoke and no evidence of excess heat.

Yesterday morning (which was below zero) I started the truck and all the warning lights on the dash came on. The display cycled through all the warnings like "service stabilitrack" etc... Oil pressure gauge was fine and truck seemed to be running fine so I drove it 2 miles to work.

At lunch time I started the truck and it was down to just the "Service stabilitrack" warning.

At quitting time all the warnings were gone.

This is the second time it's happened and both dealers I've been to say they could find nothing wrong with it. Truck is still under warranty.

Sure, depending on skill level and tools available. I've gutted both front wheel drive and rear wheel drive powertrains without a lift. Very doable if you know what you are doing. A quick google search yielded about 10 billion hits, complete with video. Hmm, I wonder if it's a common problem